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'Rebel' female Buddhist monks
Vastmind
Memphis, TN Veteran
'Rebel' female Buddhist monks challenge Thailand status quo
" .... Despite conservative opposition, bhikkhunis are gaining ground with the general public in Thailand.
"It is a movement now. When I was struggling by myself it was just this crazy woman who wanted to be a monk," says Dhammananda, who was ordained in 2003. "Now people don't feel strange when they see a female monk in the streets. We don't have problems with people, with society."
Keep marching on Ladies !!!!
7
Comments
Good news
Tara Power! Thanks for sharing 
Women are constantly having to out-dharma the traditional misogynistic small wheelies from yester-millennium ...
There have been female "nuns" in Thailand for quite some time. In fact, there was one temple I visited north of Bangkok where there were many. Less common in most places. But they were looked on sort of as "volunteers" with no official capacity. They mostly served the male monks (cooking, repair of clothing, as well as doing good deeds in the community). I quite admired their persistence, while not being officially recognized.
For some reason, this discussion brought to mind a snippet from the movie "Zen Noir," a film that was not quite as good as it wanted to be, but still had some nice touches. In the scene as I badly recall it, a woman monk/nun with a shaven head is trying to describe to an uninitiated man what the differences were between "lay precepts" and the precepts monks took. And part of her description came with the approximate words, "I took the lay precepts. Lay precepts means we can still get laid."
Are you talking about the women who live in the monasteries but only were able to take the lay precepts, they would wear white clothes or have there been secret nuns with the full vows but only hidden away?
I'm talking about the former.
About time! Yay!!!
Seems ridiculous to me that there are even rules against females ordaining as nuns. And in Buddhism of all places. I think these folks need to go to read Buddhism for Dummies.
Actually a great book!
Secret nuns? I'll join. Do we get a cape?
The Fall 2015 issue of The Forest Path, the newsletter for Bhante Gunaratana's Therevadan Forest Monastery, has a bunch of features on the recent full ordination of a bhikkhuni, a Buddhist nun, in Germany, the first such Therevadan ordination in European history and part of the revival of the order of nuns going on in Therevada Buddhism worldwide. There is also a review of some new translations of the Therigatha, poems of the early Buddhist nuns, which are cool and powerful: http://bhavanasociety.org/newsletters/issue/fall_newsletter_20151
Hay, if an 8 year old daughter of a Dragon King can obtain enlightenment in an instant, why not have full fledged female monks?
There is a Nembutsu temple near by that has an ordained female priest in charge. While I have ideological differences with the Amida folks, I think that, from the standpoint of equality, way to go!
I could 'go off' here, but this is a 'family' show..
Peace to all